About Us

Who is Burson Audio?
Found by a small team of audio engineers over 20 years ago, Burson Audio is based in Melbourne, Australia. We design benchmark setting audio equipment and premium quality audio design building blocks for fellow audio enthusiasts and manufacturing partners.

What is Burson Opamp?
The Burson discrete opamps are considered around the world as the gold standard of audio opamps. They are widely adopted and universally loved by audio enthusiasts, recording studios and manufacturers alike.

With 15 years of ongoing research and many generations of designs, we are not an overnight sensation. Our reputation is the result of our unwavering quest for perfection and our commitment to quality. This is why Burson opamps are the ONLY ones in the world to offer 30 days of satisfaction refund guaranteed and covered by a lifetime of warranty.

The Burson Philosophy

Our philosophy is simple; the less our components interfere with the audio signal the more complete your musical experience. This is our core design philosophy since we began in 1996. If our equipment is designed well and transparent enough — and it is — then the pace, rhythm, timing dynamics and tonality becomes a natural expression of the music. We feel this can never be achieved with standard circuit building blocks like IC chip op-amps, IC regulators, or even standard transformers. Instead we research and develop customized discrete circuits specifically to suit their applications. Only then does each and every component in the signal path perform at its peak. And only then will the end result match our expectations.

What’s Right About Discrete Circuits

Discrete circuits are custom built by Burson for specific applications rather than an op-amp’s jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none specifications. The art of circuit design yields superior sound in every way in comparison to simple plug-a-chip engineering.
A system can only sound as good as its weakest link. All our products use thick, quality, temperature-stable printed circuit boards with high-purity copper traces and gold-plated soldering pads. And extra coating is applied to both sides of the PCB preventing oxidation. The boards are hand-built use high-spec metal-film resistors and other audio-grade parts using as few hand-matched components in the signal path as possible.

Each transistor is chemically optimized for its application: NPN or PNP

Each transistor tested and matched before hand-soldering onto the PCB

What’s So Entirely Wrong With IC Op-Amps

Integrated Chip op-amps are simple building blocks created for the PC industry and designed to work in a wide range of equipment and temperatures. To achieve such versatility the densely-packed circuits inside an op-amp have over 50 micro components that are chemically formed and inferior in every way to discrete components. Plus many ICs have built-in components and corrective networks that aren’t even used for audio amplification further spoiling the signal.

The conductive layer in op-amps is formed with a layer of aluminium vapor that’s thinner than the water vapor left on a foggy windshield! The close proximity of components also poses a problem for audio signals with EMI noise.
An IC op-amp is entirely constructed on a single slice of silicon wafer smaller than a grain of rice. Limited by size and heat dispersion it’s impossible to incorporate top quality audio transistors like the A970 or K170 which feature in the Burson Audio discrete design.
All components on the op-amp silicone are formed by droplets of chemicals like an inkjet printer. This fabrication process just can’t create parts like the 1% tolerance metal-film resistors, or the super-stable silver mica capacitor. Since they’re all connected (hence integrated) they can’t be individually tested and matched.

During construction of a discrete transistor a chemical optimisation process take place for each pieces of silicon according to its application (NPN or PNP). This process is critical to the performance of the final product. But it can’t be done on an integrated circuit as all transistors are fabricated on the same piece of silicon, a major drawback compared to a discrete circuit.
For example, a standard IC op-amp like the OPA2064 is designed to work between 4.5 to 24V which means a lot of compensation has to be applied in the power intake circuits. Burson, on the other hand, knows precisely what voltage is required for our applications and so our custom circuits supply ideal voltage without need for any compensation.

And What’s Wrong With Class-D

Most modest footprint power amplifiers are class-D or variations like class-T or Z. Such designs are wholly inconsistent with Burson ideals on two counts. The first is our steadfast refusal to use IC-based audio building blocks as we’ve described above. The second is that class-D and class-T chips were created for the car audio industry and subsequently for mobile phones where power efficiency, size and budget are the driving design parameters so audio performance is secondary if that.

Instead of going with the flow, we refused to compromise and gave ourselves the difficult task of creating a class-D sized power amplifier with an IC-free class-A output stage with a custom transformer and a linear power supply. Burson’s wonderful-sounding Timekeeper amplifier successfully challenges the established beliefs about size vs. performance.

Class-A designs are simpler than other modes so there are a reduced number components in the signal path that preserves the purity of the signal. The transistors in this design operate in the most linear portion of their transconductance curve hence deliver less distortion. Because the transistor is never ‘off’ there’s no “turn on” delay or problems with charge storage. And generally class-A has better high frequency performance and a stable feedback loop. Lastly, class-A doesn’t suffer the crossover distortion that’s associated with class-D designs.

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*30-Day Satisfaction Refund Guarantee
If you don’t like it, simply send it back in resellable conditions for a refund. Burson will not cover the return postage and we'll deduct 5% transaction fee from your initial payment.
**All Completed Burson products are covered by five years of warranty. All Burson Audio Opamps are covered by a life-time of warranty. Warranty applies ONCE it is registered here (https://www.bursonaudio.com/warranty-reg/) within one month of purchase.